Category Archives: Uncategorized

Dear Readers, I have stepped away from my blog for a time. Colleague Megan Stonelake is filling in with insightful posts about parenting. Enjoy. Given the popularity of the time out on parenting websites, it may come as a surprise to many parents that time outs aren’t the most effective form of discipline. Parents may [...]

Dear Readers, I have stepped away from my blog for a time but my colleague Megan Stonelake is filling in with insightful posts about parenting. Enjoy. There are some misconceptions about how parents discipline when they don’t use punishment. The assumption about discipline appears to be that parents either punish their children with violence and [...]

I wish I could nap. But, I’ve never been someone who could lie down in the afternoon, close my eyes and take a snooze. I wish I could! I watch my husband do it. He can fall into a blissful sleep within minutes of arranging himself on the bed, sleep for a while and wake [...]

If you watch a lot of mainstream television, you might think our community is a dangerous place. You might even believe there are more terrible things going on than kindness and beauty. But you would be wrong. You would also most likely be anxious, depressed, fearful and cynical. A steady diet of media and popular [...]

I began working as a mental health therapist four years ago. It was a time when the great recession, which began in a blinding crash in 2008, was still winding its poison tendrils through our community. Today, the effects of that worldwide financial crisis are still dramatically affecting our lives. This has been a time [...]

Nelson Mandela once said, “Resentment is like taking poison and then hoping your enemies will die.” This, from a man whose enemies imprisoned him for a good share of his life. If ever a person had the opportunity to learn about resentment and forgiveness, he did. And, apparently he learned that hatred, bitterness and harboring [...]

Ingredients: Listen deeply Open-up: Take the risk to reveal your tender places. Be vulnerable. Validate: You may not agree, but you can search for what makes sense from your partner’s point of view. Evolve: Invest in your own growth, development and self-care. When we feel good about ourselves we are better partners. Directions: Sift 2 [...]

The last two weeks I have been writing about a new way of understanding love relationships, based on the idea that we are meant to be bonded to our mate, and that the way we were nurtured, or not, in childhood, shows up in how we relate to our lover. The really good news is [...]

When we are in conflict with our spouse or partner there is almost always something else going on underneath the anger and the details of the argument. We are not fighting about the kids or the laundry or the dirty socks on the floor, although these can easily be the catalyst for our rage. No, [...]

Our culture is steeped in the idea that to be successful in love we must be independent and strong. Neediness can be seen as a dirty word, and relying on our partner is often considered weak or co-dependent. But what if reliance on our mate is exactly what evolution has primed us for? What if [...]

About The Author

Lois Schlegel

Lois Schlegel, MFA, MS, mental health therapist at Life in Bloom Counseling in Medford and Ashland, has 20 years of experience providing services to individuals and families. She has taught parent education and life skills classes to adults and ... Full Profile